Frank R. Campbell spent a decade collecting historical and contemporary photographs of Chicago, especially street scenes with trolleys, buses and other modes of public transit. After his wife's death, he made his collection publicly available through the West Side Historical Society collections at the Legler Branch Library of Chicago Public Library. 355 of the original 851 photographs are now in Special Collections. The Library gratefully acknowledges the Oriental Consistory which deeded its claim to the collection to Chicago Public Library.

Biographical Note

Lillian May Smith was born on the West Side of Chicago, August 22, 1881, the daughter of George D. and Susan A. Smith. She was married April 20, 1902, to Frank R. Campbell. The couple settled in the Austin neighborhood. They had one son, Frank R. Campbell Jr., who served in World War II as a Lieutenant in the United States Coast Guard.

Deeply interested in civic activities, Mrs. Campbell was a member of a number of clubs, including the Austin Woman's Club, Friends of American Writers, West Side Historical Society, Amelia Earhart Civic Club, Iris Garden Circle, and Miriam Chapter #1 Order of the Eastern Star. In addition, she served as President of seven others. Presidents of eighteen west side organizations signed a citation presented to her at a testimonial dinner in 1937 sponsored by the Distinguished Civic Service Association of Chicago.

Mrs. Campbell was instrumental in the establishment of the "First Night Fund" at Illinois Masonic Hospital in 1925, which provided a post-operation night nurse for patients unable to pay the costs. She was the impetus which led to the 1937 founding of a rehabilitation home for first-offender women victims of alcohol and drug abuse. She served as secretary to the West Side Women’s Division of the 1934 "Drama of Chicago on Parade."

Of Mrs. Campbell, Cicero Review publisher William Henry Maas wrote, "I always felt that her very entrance into a room was as though another candle had been lighted. . . . With Lillian Campbell, you just naturally felt that life was enriched every time you met her." She died at her home, 5433 W. Ohio Street, following a long illness, on December 11, 1942, and was buried in Rosehill Cemetery.

Frank R. Campbell was born on Chicago’s west side November 7, 1881. He spent a forty-year career with the Chicago Surface Lines, predecessor of the Chicago Transit Authority. Mr. Campbell’s own civic club presidencies totaled twenty-nine separate organizations; with his wife he was active in the West Side Historical Society. He died at their home in Austin in October, 1946. Although the Campbells were reared Episcopalians, both their funerals were conducted by the Unitarian pastor Preston Bradley.

Scope and Content

This collection consists of one initial accession and two supplements.

The Campbell photographs are strongest in two areas. The first is city-wide street scenes, particularly in the neighborhoods of Roseland, South Shore, South Chicago, Woodlawn, Lakeview, Rogers Park, Portage Park, and Logan Square. Of special interest are many pairs of photos showing the same intersection in photos taken twenty or thirty years apart. The collection's second strength is pictorial documentation of various dedications/openings of trolley and bus lines of the Chicago Surface Lines across the city (gasoline-powered busses being introduced in 1935). Included are:

Line

Neighborhood

Date

Central Avenue

Austin

1930

North Avenue and Austin Boulevard

Austin

1931

Higgins Road/Northwest Highway

Norwood Park

1935

Madison Street

West Garfield Park

1936

Foster and Kimball Streets

North Park

1937

Pulaski Road and 31st Street

South Lawndale

1937

Ogden Avenue

Near West Side

1938

Halsted Street

Near West Side

1938

The photos have been individually listed utilizing the subject headings assigned to material in the Neighborhood History Research Collections. Cards for all photographs have been filed in the Photograph Catalog via these subject headings.

The original inventory of photographs is in folder 1:1. Covers of the original Books 2, 3, 4, and 5, and sample pages from Book 2 have been preserved in folders 1:2 and 1:3 as a point of reference. The remainder of the original books has been discarded.

The dates given for this collection are 1858 to 1940. While there are pictorial representations of artifacts and scenes prior to that date, 1858 is the date of the earliest actual photograph of a real location in Chicago: a copy of Alexander Hesler’s photographs of the Cook County Courthouse (#207).

Processed July 13, 1989.

Supplement 1 (39 photographs)

This supplement consists of 39 photographs found in box of miscellany after the original collection was cataloged. The photographs have been interfiled in number order within the initial collection.

Processed November 1990.

Supplement 2 (168 photographs)

This supplement consists of Book 8 of the Campbell Collection, which is a published book of views from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition: Photographs of the World's Fair, an Elaborate Collection of Photographs of the Buildings, Grounds and Exhibits of the World's Columbian Exposition with a Special Description of the Midway Plaisance (Chicago: Werner Company, 1894).